State watch: Hidden persuaders and local lobbying

Want government to hear you out and see things your way? It’ll cost you.

A reported $73 million is spent on lobbying efforts to get state government’s ear and blessing.

And that’s likely just the tip of the New Jersey lobbying iceberg.

The $73 million is the sum businesses and other special interests spent lobbying the state government in 2011, according to required lobbyist disclosures filed with the Election Law Enforcement Commission (ELEC).

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But ELEC says the public deserves a look at the rest of the lobbying iceberg below the surface, exempt from disclosure laws. These are tax funds local governments spend to hire lobbyists for themselves, plus money special interests spend lobbying the states’ hundreds of local governing bodies, school boards, authorities and commissions.

The dollar amount going into these hidden persuaders may add millions atop that $72-million figure for lobbying that goes on in the Statehouse and other state buildings in Trenton. Two big-dollar local issues — contracts and building permits — are powerful magnets attracting professional and influential lobbying efforts, says ELEC, an independent agency that tracks campaign finances as well as lobbying expenditures.

A glimpse of the possible big bucks going into local lobbying comes from partial, voluntary disclosures made by a few of New Jersey’s 1,000 registered lobbyists along with their mandatory state lobbying disclosures. These partial local disclosures showed some $3.4 million of lobbying expenditures, 2009-2011, at the town hall and county office level.

For 2011, the partial disclosure figure fell back to about $556,000, possibly due to local budget crunches — and also possibly due to Gov. Chris Christie’s denunciations of such expenditures.

The State Comptroller’s Office, which spotlights questionable public spending, reports that in 2006-07 municipal and county-level officials dipped into local treasuries for nearly $4 million to hire lobbyists.

Whether such expenditures should be banned, as six states do, is the policy-making prerogative of the governor and legislature, says Comptroller A. Matthew Boxer. But at a minimum, such expenditures should have to be disclosed, he adds.

Despite Gov. Christie’s jawboning against local lobbying expenditures, there are no signs of Statehouse activity on ELEC’s recommendation that the disclosure laws be extended to include them.